


Robes for the fettered

by angeldescendant



Series: Fit for Bastard Kings [2]
Category: Vinland Saga (Manga)
Genre: Askeladd Backstory, DO NOT READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED, Gen, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Minor Character Death, Past Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Post Chapter 54, Vinland Saga Manga Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-10-29 23:00:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20804387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angeldescendant/pseuds/angeldescendant
Summary: What is Askeladd a slave to? A promise, maybe.





	Robes for the fettered

**Author's Note:**

> Part 2 of the Askeladd-centric series.

It was a lonely rugged place they called Wales. His mother weighed so little and Askeladd felt small as he saw her people, in their wooden shields and spears, remnants of a strong folk, pride the only thing left in their worn bones.

His mother could barely make a sound. So he spoke on her behalf, his final service to her.

“_Mother… sick… die soon… brought her… home.”_

_\--_

The man in garbs of a forgotten time calls himself Legatus. He listens as Askeladd, through a Norse interpreter, spoke of a story in the land of the unruly Danes, of a child who killed his father, of a mother driven to madness because of a wistful myth.

She drew her last breath before he could finish.

“So what will you do now, son of Lydia?” he asked after they bury his mother on top of a hill facing the gleaming sea.

The youth looks on. “I will keep the name those whoresons gave me, live among their kind, grant myself enough glory to make them forget my bastard blood.”

“A king?”

He shook his head. “No, a Viking.”

\--

Lydia stirred, enough for Askeladd to break off his sleep and cradle her on his father’s bed. Hours before, Olaf, that filthy Dane, would look at him in shock and fear as he kept plunging that goddamn longsword to barely sever his head.

“_Do you want to hear the tale of a king from a distant land?_” she murmured. Askeladd lets her branch of a hand run through his detestable hair he inherited from his father.

He nodded as if he hasn’t heard it a multitude of times since they lived in the stables, and then with the coals and cinders, and then in his father’s quarters. He lets her drone on, her voice barely audible now, about a man so grand, who retreats to treat his wounds, vowing paradise on his return.

His half-brother who would be the scapegoat said his mother was a mad whore and beat her the most when Askeladd barely stood on his legs.

His mother was a fragile flower, easy to crush in a world like this. Her constitution, her mental capacity; she preferred to retreat in dreams instead of picking the last of her pieces and leaving her fictional king behind. He understood her a little. She was unlucky to be born in a time like this only to be defiled by pigsmears like them.

There was no room for Avalon here. Reality should be lived, faced with fallible bravado and deadly gusto. It’s a world for them to seize and conquer and ravage. No place for slaves.

“My mother must have mistaken Artorius for that Christian god,” said Askeladd after another day of training. He was losing the unnecessary movements this time. Legatus knew the art of the sword better than his father. The man was also a master in imbibing him with the language of the Saxons. “They share the same story, the same failings.”

The land was awash in autumn then, of browns and yellows igniting the fields. Both of them sit amongst the ruins to await the twilight.

“It is better to cling to nothing,” Askeladd said. “Restricts your actions and beliefs. They will kill you horribly, pitifully.”

“Youths should not talk that way,” Legatus said. “Where have your dreams gone?”

The wind billowed their capes. Askeladd had fitted the breastplate Lydia gave as a parting gift. It made the cold tolerable at least.

“They’re nothing but ashes now,” he said. “As my name will be.”

He bade farewell that afternoon, sailing back to Denmark alone.

\--

His house asked nothing of the men Askeladd disposed of to rid the whispers. His remaining brothers are dealt with swiftly. One had too much to drink he fell off a ditch only a stones’ throw away from the village. Another fell ill and was struck with madness, naming poison, not stomach pains for his doom. He was grateful of Askeladd’s blade striking him down. The rest were smitten in battle. 

No complaints were laid when he became the head. They knew of his prowess in battle, his cunning, and his ambition. Soon more towns fell under his hand. His army grew, as his appetite for life lessened as the years wore and his hair grew thin and his straw beard thickened.

In the end, he let his uncle become his steward and set sights on the open sea, of battles beyond, of riches beyond lords with stubby hands can offer-

\--

It felt rote, this kind of life. Seeking glory, Valhalla, zest, then death.

He remembered Artorius and tried losing him through another night amongst the knolls.

“You’re an odd one,” he hears someone say just below. A sullen face, a mop of black unkempt hair, just a few years younger than he. “Always on your lonesome.”

“Oh?” Askeladd snorted. Someone from his crew survived long enough to notice. He refused the horn full of wine as the man reached him. He was large for his age; his hand big enough to crush a woman’s skull. “Does it make you uneasy to have a man who prefers cleansing his ears from commotion, and his eyes from drunkards?”

“You were always a teetotaller too, like those damn priests,” he said, blinking at the horn before taking a fair draught from it. “Different from the men I followed before.”

“How many poor sods have you followed?”

“Three. All of them were full of themselves. I killed the last one during a battle,” he tucked the horn away. “Didn’t think too much of people who led me to battle, as long as there is one until you came along. You don’t eat too much, nor do you drink, nor do you care for the riches we plunder too long. Your eyes always look dead.”

This man observed him far too much. Askeladd’s palm laid on the pommel of his blade.

“What is your name?” he said blankly as he made some distance from him, but enough to land the first strike quicker.

“Björn,” he said, taking a mushroom from his coat. “About time you notice the men who follow you.”

“Only if you impress me enough,” Askeladd sneered as he wasted no time throwing his scabbard at Björn’s direction before flicking his sword sideways, intent on silencing this massive buffoon.

\--

Björn swore complete fealty only on their third spar. He made his way to kill the bastard who aimed to sever his legs in another battlefield. It had been almost five years since Askeladd knew his name the first time.

Askeladd made full use of his opponent’s more massive body weight, spinning in circles, frustrating him further to land a wide swing and make him fall on all fours, the side of his blade resting on his neck.

“Something on your mind, you big lout?” Askeladd snorted as Björn hauled the rest of the bounty hours later. The rest of the men were too busy being rowdy and merry with their roast and ale around the fire pit to notice.

“I shouldn’t be asking questions, but it still nags me. You think nothing of this,” he said as he lets the coins run through his fingers. “Nothing about a noble death, or dreams, or wealth, yet you remain here, with men you think nothing of. What exactly do you gain from all this? Another night out to mope in the hills again?”

“Will you keep following me then, until you get your answer?” Askeladd said after he lowers the rest inside his uncle’s glittering pile near his house. The irony, he would think. This was the place he was thrown out with his mother a lifetime ago.

Bjorn gave him the red robe they snatched from their latest fallen lord as he walked out the door. “I heard from the maidservants it will snow tonight. Keep yourself warm when you wander off again.”

Askeladd doesn’t look at him as he lets the velvet drape on him as he looks up at the starless sky.

\--

“When did your mother die?” Askeladd asked on a night at sea. They would become additional reinforcements to aid the Jomsvikings, battling alongside the famed Thorkell in a fortnight.

“I was nine. One of my brothers did him in,” he said as he cleaned his blade. “Mistook her for a fox after having too much to drink. Hacked her to pieces like this,” he kept his charade for a while, all with a straight face Askeladd found amusing. “My youngest brother and I made sure our town would go on a range to strike that cow down the same way. My brother died during the ordeal. I didn’t want to lead the household, so I ended up here.”

“Did you care for her?”

“Not much. But I miss her onion soup. I try recreating her recipe sometimes, but I’m better with the sword.”

“Doesn’t fit you at all.”

“Not one bit,” Björn looks at his sword. “But I do dream of her, sometimes. Makes me livid, why she can’t go to Asgard like the rest of us.”

Askeladd looked at the blackness laid in front of them. He remembered the nights he was in a boat as well, holding his mother’s hand as they sailed to Wales, as the darkness was broken by dawn, and the sky would ignite.

“_Like rowing a boat, we enter the future backwards,” _she said. “_All we see are scenes of the past, and no one can see the views of tomorrow.”_

“We’re getting old Björn,” Askeladd said in jest. “And still we dream the same dreams.”

“If we don’t hold onto them, what else is there?”

\--

It’s been more than a decade since then, and Askeladd almost had an answer.

It kept him awake that night, how close he was of finding out a means to defy his mother, this forsaken world, only to let that means slip through his fingers for minor conveniences. That man, that bastard- what exactly did he see as he uttered those words? What made him willing to lose an honourable death for those weak-willed bastards?

What would it have been like to wake up and follow him, to look forward, beyond the familiar horizon the first time? So many goddamn questions only sprouted from his conservative decisions.

That man, Thors the Troll, made Askeladd nearly throw away all of these things he built, at their first meeting alone, and he wanted to know why. He was a great warrior, but there were something in his voice, his words, his last action, that made Askeladd question the decades he lived- If he was even living at all.

He dreamed of Artorius again who had the face of Thors, raising a sword on his steed, him, just close behind.

The door behind him opens quietly, soft footsteps padding behind him. Askeladd waits. He could hear short, laboured breathing just behind him – the grunt of a child.

His past finally caught up to him, lolling its ugly, smug head at his direction. The child who slew his own father got his just deserts. He could see the gleaming of the blade from the torchlight behind them. He waited.

The door closed and the tension broke. Askeladd opened his eyes and stared at the wall behind him. No spilt blood. In that pillaged house, there was he, a bed of straw, the fire, and a thought that bloomed as he woke up and saw the child outside, waiting. He wobbled under the sword too heavy for him to wield, fire in his eyes.

“I, Thorfinn, son of Thors, challenge you to a duel,” he screamed to ease his fear.

He looked at Björn, who shrugged in reply. Thors had left a boy Askeladd never grew up to be.

“I accept your challenge,” yawned Askeladd, who realised he believed in something after all.

  
**FIN**


End file.
